I straighten my shoulders and step forward, pushing my bag around so it doesn’t fall off my shoulder as I hike up the humongous steps to get into the motor home. When Jace bought it, he asked if he should get me a carabiner so I could climb in and out of it every day. I proved him wrong by bouncing up the steep steps all by myself. But I never considered that I’d be sporting a large belly anytime soon, and in nine months I’ll need a forklift.
The scrappy puppy stays close to my ankles, sniffing around the motor home floor. Jace unpacked my things. The whole front area, which includes a couch, a table, and a kitchen, was piled with boxes this morning, but it’s clean now. He’s even put up a selfie of us that we took his first day of shooting. He’s kissing my neck and I’m laughing and scolding him to smile. I love that picture.
A wave of nausea hits me out of nowhere, and I rush to the sink, clutching the edge of the counter. I take calculated inhales and exhales, trying to relax the sudden roll of my stomach. I wasn’t able to stop the puke early this morning—like, way early. It was 3 A.M. when Jace found me curled up in the bathroom and telling him to just let me die.
But as I breathe deep, the nausea slowly dissipates, and I notice a lovely sheen of sweat has glossed over my forehead. I take a rag and wipe myself off, and a big clang makes me jump.
“No!” I whisper-scold the puppy as he pushes his nose into the pots and pans cupboard.
“Shay? Is that you?” Jace calls from the back. I bend down and stuff the pots back in place.
“Yeah!”
“You alone?”
He sounds playful. My lips turn up and I shut the cupboard door. “Sort of.”
There’s a pause. Enough time for me to dump my bag on the couch and strap the leash around the closet door handle. The puppy jumps onto a chair and digs his nose into the fabric.
“Will you come back here for a minute?” Jace calls out. “Alone!”
I roll my eyes. I’d bet my entire royalty check on him being buck naked when I open that back door to our bedroom.
Cracking the door, I take one peek and see his hard-earned leading-actor muscles from toe to crown, perched in a pose that would make Captain Morgan jealous.
I should’ve written that bet down.
“Yes?” I ask, sneaking inside, trying to be oblivious to his intentions for the evening’s activities. It’s hard though. I honestly want to tackle that Captain Morgan and ride him out. Tangle my fingers in his brown hair, nibble at his stubble, which he has to keep up for his role, grab at his glorious ass…
But another wave of sick pushes through my stomach and all those thoughts fly from my head.
“We must mark our territory,” he says with a lopsided grin. His fisted hands on his waist loosen, and he rests one on the bed bunk. “We can mark it here.” He points to the bottom bunk. “And here.” Then he nods behind me. “And everywhere out there.”
“You want to pee all over our new place?” I joke, bending down to fix my pillowcase, which he must’ve rushed to put my pillow into. He takes the two steps to close the distance between us, waking up the butterflies that are making my stomach queasy.
“Can you get rid of whoever is out there?” he asks. His smile is infectious. It always has been. Even though I’m pretty sure I’m about to hurl, I want to smile with him.
Instead I take a deep breath, hoping it doesn’t smell like pregnancy. “Well, that’s going to be a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because our guest will be staying with us for a while.”
“Oh, you want them to join in?” he jokes, obviously thinking I’m joking. “They can have a little taste of this.”
He takes a step back, gyrating his hips into a windmill.
“That’s hot.” I lean against the wall, unfazed. “But you might want to put it away.”
“I know where I want to put it.”
“Yeah, but Wolverine might get a little playful with you, and his teeth are pretty sharp.”
His brow furrows slightly, grin still on his face as he tries to understand my comment. Keeping my face as impassive as possible, which is so hard since I feel like the sun is trying to rise up my neck, I pull on the leash, bringing the rescue puppy into the bed cabin.
Jace’s sexy brown eyes brighten, and he fumbles for his jeans he carelessly tossed on the floor. He stuffs one leg in, and in his haste to get the other he loses his balance and falls straight to the bottom bunk bed.
My laughter releases, and I jump on top of him.
“You got a dog?” he says, and I kiss his smiling lips.
“Hope that’s okay. I’ve heard the road can get lonely.”
“Hell yes, it’s okay.” He pats the bed, and Wolverine hops up and immediately nibbles at Jace’s fingers.
“I think it’ll be good pr—” I stop, stomach churning, and before I can spit anything out Jace grabs my face and smooths his thumb over my forehead.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” we both say at the same time, him in a very bad imitation of my voice. I pinch his nose and wiggle it. “I am. I just…I think it’ll be good practice too.”
His eyebrow rises in the most adorable confused way. “Good practice…?”
I nod, gaze dropping to his chest. I play with the barely there hair. He has to wax it a lot for his shirtless scenes. It’s hilarious holding his hand while he sits in wardrobe and makeup.
Before I can get out why owning a dog is good practice for the life-altering news I have for him, Jace puts a hand on my face, running a thumb across my cheek.
The entire world spins.
I cuss in Korean, shoving off his bare chest and rushing to the toilet.
“Was it something I said?” Jace laughs from the bunks. I groan against the porcelain, silently wondering why the universe is determined to make me look as unladylike as possible around him.
“I’m sorry,” I moan by the toilet when Jace comes in. “I’m—”
“Fine. I know.” He crouches next to me, tucking my hair back. Wolverine bounces between us, and Jace picks him up and settles him outside the bathroom. “But I think we’ll put a pause on marking our territory.”
“You don’t want a piece of this?” I lazily gesture to myself, sweating and groggy against the toilet.
“Always,” he says, running a hand through his unruly hair. “But let’s let the food baby pass first.”
My eyes drift up to meet his, and I know it’s not the best place to announce it, but out it comes anyway.
“Pretty sure it’s an actual baby this time.”
His green eyes widen to saucers. Yeah, babe, I’m being serious, I tell him telepathically.
“I’m gonna be a dad?”
“If it’s yours,” I tease. He scoots closer to me, and I bat him away in case there’s more lunch glugging through my stomach. But he ignores my lousy attempts at keeping him at bay. His hands cup my cheeks, and the light behind his eyes equals scared beyond belief…yet…thrilled.
I think he’s about to say something super poignant. But he says, “I gotta call Grandma.”
One of my real laughs, the kind that come from deep down in my tummy, barrels from my lips. “I love you,” I say, shaking my head at his imperfect words, which are always so perfect in moments like these. It hits me two seconds later that I’ve said the words we’ve never said to each other. The words that scared him so badly the last time he heard them. My heart squeezes in my chest, cutting off all my cognitive functions.
His mouth perks up slightly in the corner, and he gathers me up in his arms. We cuddle by the toilet with Wolverine resting on our legs.
“Well,” he says, pressing a kiss to my temple, “I love you too.”
To all the Unlikely Love Interests
Acknowledgments
I love food.
Food is my creative juice.
I would be nowhere without my writing snack supply of peanut butter M&M’s, Red Vines, Wheat Thins, and pink grapefruit sparkling water.
> Also, the occasional cheesecake that my wonderful husband provides.
I love technology.
Without a keyboard, I would not write, because I can’t decipher my own handwriting.
I love being able to push buttons and have an imaginary world plop onto a screen.
I especially love it when it auto-saves before completely shutting down in the middle of a…
I love television.
And How I Met Your Mother, for obvious reasons.
I love books.
The characters, the plots, the insane worlds that come to life when I sink into the pages. I love it all, and hardcore love the authors behind them.
I love people.
Readers, bloggers, and Internet friends. My Awesome Nerds, my page followers, and my one-click auto buyers. My IMers, my texters, and my emailers. My Goodreads reviewers and my ever-so-precious Amazon reviewers. I love and appreciate everyone I know a ton about and everyone I know very little about.
I love people.
My sweet editor, Sue Grimshaw. My amazing agent, Rachel Stout. My invaluable beta readers, Theresa Paolo, Jolene Perry, Carol Paolo, and Tiffany King. My wonderful copy editor, Hilary Roberts, and my kick-butt team at Loveswept and Flirt, Ashleigh and Erika and everyone!
I love people.
My best friends: Theresa, for always smacking me out of my insecurities. Lenore, for your enthusiasm and giving me courage to do what I knew that I had to with this book. Beth, for your passion and way with words. Rachel, for always being there when I need a hug. Ashlei, for your smile and brilliant insight. My Beta Girls, for the funny pictures, laughs, and honesty.
I love people.
My biggest thank-you goes to my family, always, because they have to put up with me every day. Thank you, kids, for letting Mom work weird and long hours.
I love LOVE.
My husband is an arrogant man. He struts about like he knows everything and he’ll tell you that too. He knows he’s built like a machine, can outrun and outlift, and he looks mighty fine in a uniform. But that’s not why I fell so deeply in love with him.
It was his heart, which was not so easily stolen. It took years of friendship and ragging on each other before we were ready to hand them over. And when he took mine, he promised to care for it. Ten years later, and my heart doesn’t have a single scratch on it. He’s why I can write realistic love, because I don’t have to fantasize about it.
(Hubby says, “Well, I love you too.”)
BY CASSIE MAE
All About Love
Doing It for Love
No Interest in Love
Crazy About Love (coming soon)
Standalone Titles
Friday Night Alibi
Switched
The Real Thing
PHOTO: ERIN SUMMERILL
CASSIE MAE (who dons the name Becca Ann on occasion) is the author of a few hundred—okay, maybe not that many—books, some of which became popular for their quirky titles, characters, and stories. She likes writing about nerds, geeks, the awkward, the fluffy, the short, the shy, the loud, the fun.
Since publishing her bestselling debut, Reasons I Fell for the Funny Fat Friend, she has published and sold books to Random House, Swoon Romance, and Tulip Romance. She has a favorite of all her babies, but, no, she won’t tell you what it is. (Mainly because it changes, depending on the day.)
Along with writing, Cassie likes to binge-watch Teen Wolf and The Big Bang Theory. She can quote Harry Potter lines quick as a whip. And she likes kissing her hubby, but only if his facial hair is trimmed. She also likes cheesecake to a very obsessive degree.
You can stalk, talk, or send pictures of Dylan O’Brien to:
cassiemaeauthor.wordpress.com
Facebook.com/cassiemaeauthor
The Editor’s Corner
Happy Holidays from our hearth to yours! This month we’re sending you some hot Loveswept romances to keep the fire burning:
USA Today bestselling author Bronwen Evans’s new Disgraced Lords novel is about a marriage of convenience and its delightful pleasures—and mortal danger in A Whisper of Desire. K. J. Charles turns up the heat in her new Society of Gentlemen novel, A Seditious Affair, as two lovers face off in a sensual duel that challenges their deepest beliefs. Samantha Kane’s Birmingham Rebels series proves that three’s never a crowd…at least not for the hard-bodied football all-stars who give teamwork a sexy twist in Calling the Play. Welcome to Forever, new from author Annie Rains, introduces a small coastal town where America’s best and brightest risk everything for love. Jackie Ashenden ups the ante in the seductive Deacons of Bourbon Street series, co-written with Megan Crane, Rachael Johns, and Maisey Yates, with Hold Me Down, a story about what happens when the biker who broke Alice’s heart rides into town, and she must choose between passion and duty. Another story for MC fans is Violetta Rand’s irresistible novel about a sexy-as-sin biker who tempts a good girl to go bad, Persuasion.
In USA Today bestselling author Tina Wainscott’s gritty, emotional small-town romance Falling Hard, passions run high as a reformed bad boy reconnects with an old enemy…and gets her engine revving. In Laura Marie Altom’s tale of forbidden love, Stepping Over the Line, meet two tortured souls with an unbreakable bond. Then comes a tender military romance from Serena Bell, USA Today bestselling author of Hold on Tight, in which a war-shattered veteran gets a second chance at love with the one that got away in Can’t Hold Back.
Writing duo MJ Fields and Chelsea Camaron release another sizzling-hot Caldwell Brothers story—Morrison, which hits the Vegas strip as a bad-boy gambler from Detroit Rock City shows a single mom what it means to play for keeps. Then it’s off to Los Angeles where Hollywood’s hottest young actor hits the road to chase his big break—and discovers a leading lady where he least expects in Cassie Mae’s No Interest in Love.
I can’t believe 2016 is upon us, can you? Thank you for spending your reading time with Loveswept, and we hope to entertain you all over again in the new year.
Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for an excerpt from
When We Fall
by Marquita Valentine
Available from Loveswept
Chapter 1
Jase
I can’t stop staring at her. It’s like a sickness, or maybe an addiction. Either way, I’m fucked when it comes to not noticing Piper Ross.
She’s one of those girls who gives off a don’t-touch-me vibe, but for a guy like me, Don’t touch means touch as often as possible. Don’t look means gazing at her with a hunger I can’t satisfy no matter how many women I fuck. They’re not her.
And it pisses me the hell off.
Piper smiles when she catches me looking at her. It’s a sweet smile, full of innocence. I don’t do well with innocence. By the time I’d get done with her, she’d be as filthy as me. Which is why we won’t ever happen, no matter how hungry I stay for her. No matter how hot it was when she watched me with another woman while I imagined it was her mouth on my cock, not some coked-out stripper’s.
No matter—
“Hi, Jase,” Piper says, moving closer. There is a confidence in her walk I have never seen before. Her short pink skirt and white sleeveless top make her look exactly like dessert. Like some kind of erotic Neapolitan sundae. My favorite kind of ice cream. Mostly because I’m a greedy bastard who doesn’t think I should be confined to one of anything.
Instead of leaving like I should, I move over on the bench to make room for her to sit beside me. Though she won’t dare. She never does.
“Hello, Piper. Enjoying the party?”
“Yes. It was fun decorating and keeping it a secret from Rowan. Thank you for letting me use your house,” she says.
Piper might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen, but she’s also the most timid. She’s gotten better. Now when she sees me, we can actually carry on a conversation longer than two words.
It’s no
t because she’s stupid, either. She’s a college graduate. She helps kids in her free time. The neighborhood she drives to is pretty shitty, and she’s volunteering at night now, so I’ve…well, I’ve been following her. To make sure she’s safe.
“Anytime you want, baby doll.”
Piper sits down beside me, her breast accidentally brushing against my arm, and I have to grit my teeth. “Sorry,” she mumbles, all that confidence melting away along with her smile. She makes to scoot aside, but I grab her thigh. Her bare thigh.
“Don’t apologize, and don’t move.” I flash her an easygoing smile. One that’s in direct conflict with my body. And my brain. My brain’s trying to figure out how to get her to straddle me so I can touch both thighs—to feel that hot, silky bare skin underneath both of my palms.
“Okay,” she says, her body going rigid.
I jerk my hand away. I have no business touching her. None at all. Obviously, she doesn’t want me to touch her, either, or she wouldn’t have that look on her face. The one that says You’re a disgusting pig.
“Didn’t mean to grab you,” I say gruffly. Normally I don’t apologize to anyone, but Piper’s different. She’s always been there for Rowan, even after I went to prison, which meant she was there for me, too.
Piper’s face flushes. “I—it’s okay. I thought I’d offended you or something. You know, with…I stumbled, and my—I hit you. And Rowan mentioned that since you and Giselle broke up that women were practically throwing themselves at you and you weren’t happy with that? So…yeah, good party.”
I can’t help but stare at her in amazement. She was actually concerned about me. Besides my sister, the only other person ever concerned about me is me. “Quit worrying about it. You don’t count,” I say, trying to put her at ease.
She glances away, her long, dark lashes fluttering wildly, like she’s trying to get something out of her eye. “I guess I don’t. I’m just your sister’s best friend and former roommate. So that makes us family. Or something.”